Critical Essay by Dennis A. Foster

In the following essay, Foster analyzes several of Poe's fictions, and argues that for the characters in Poe's stories, “unpleasure is its own reward.”

Ordinary fucking people. I hate them.

—Repo Man

The plots of Poe's stories are too shallow to bury the bodies he needs to cover up. The bodies return, a telltale part always there to betray the alibis of his narrators. Roderick Usher's friend happily buries the blushing Madeline; Dupin's sidekick believes the police would really overlook the filthy letter; Legrand's friend in “The Gold-Bug” listens wide-eyed to a story of an ancient cryptographic note found fluttering on the beach. The narrators insist on their own reason...